The costs of life-extending care at the end of life are often disproportionately high in relation to the benefits it brings to the patients. Thus, the unrestricted principle of cost-effectiveness as a rule of rational healthcare allocation would require us to limit publicly funded life-prolonging treatments for patients nearing the end of life. From a societal perspective, however, this limitation would be often callous and inhuman. There are three possible ways to reconcile these two attitudes. First, we could restrict the principle of cost-effectiveness by questioning its validity in the field of end- of-life care. Second, we could raise the acceptable upper cost-effectiveness threshold for end-of- life treatments. Thirdly, it is also possible to maintain that the seemingly rather poor effects of end-of-life treatments are actually much better, because the value of life increases as death draws near. In this paper, I discuss the plausiblity of this last solution.

The paper attempts to present the fundamental perspectives which are necessary to understand Aquinas’s position on contingency, freedom and individuation in order to compare his thinking with Duns Scotus’s. The author wants to take into account Gilson’s warning: it is useless to compare chosen details of the aforementioned philosophical proposals, if there is no understanding of the deep difference between the metaphysical systems of the two philosophers.The first section presents the difference in the understanding of the relationship between nature and will. Duns Scotus interprets the will as opposed to nature and sees a truly free and Christian person acting as opposed to the deterministic operations of nature. For Aquinas the truly personal acting may be inscribed in nature as its free fulfilment. The difference is based on the different readings of Aristotle’s philosophy. The second section describes the difference in the understanding of the transcendence of the divine actions. Thomas uses a very strong concept of transcendence that allows him to accept the thesis that God’s immutable (= necessary) will achieves its purposes through the necessary and free (sic!) actions of the creatures (cf. De veri- tate, q. 6, a. 3, ad 3). Duns Scotus looks for a more intuitive understanding of the relationship between divine and human acting. Because of that he describes the divine actions as contingent, undertaken in the eternal “now”. The third section deals with the doctrine of individuation. Duns Scotus’s proposed solution to this problem is his famous form haecceitas. Although the form as the source of substantiality is the sign of individuality for Thomas, as well, in his case this has been achieved through individuation, and although he must have been aware of some difficulties in the classical Aristotelian position (matter as the main factor in individuation), he sticks to the Aristotelian solution, only slightly reformulating it (materia quantitate signata). There are two reasons for his fidelity to Aristotle in spite of doubts expressed by Albert the Great and Bona- venture: the stress on the hylemorphic structure of being and the attempt to articulate the consistency of the conceptual genera. The last problem leads to the main metaphysical difference of the analysed proposals. Duns Scotus as an essentialist has to inscribe everything that is real within the order of essence; Thomas articulates reality by taking into account essence and existence. His position opens wider possibilities for the understanding of being.

The aim of the paper is to show the main differences between the concepts of contingency, free will and individuality in John Duns Scotus and in the Aristotelian tradition. I outline the parts of Scotus’s view, which constitute a clear departure from the traditional Aristotelian outlook: (a) the rejection of the principle of plenitude; (b) the construal of the present as contingent; (c) the development of the notion of synchronic contingency; and (d) the separation between immutability and necessity. In his anthropology Scotus emphasizes: (1) the notion of free will as autonomous and self-determining; (2) the rationality of the will, which consists in its dependence on the intellect or knowledge; and (3) the rejection of Aristotelian eudaimonism. God is treated by Scotus as capable of knowing and loving individual, contingent beings. In his axiology Scotus stresses positive aspects of the individuality, plurality and uniqueness of each individual being.

In the article, I examine whether an analysis of facts of existence is possible. A fact of existence is a specific variety of a state of affairs. States of affairs are ontological correlates of propositions. Facts of existence are counterparts of existential propositions. States of affairs, in contrast to facts of existence, can be analyzed as compositions of simpler ingredients, e.g. of subject and properties. There are philosophers who think the analogical analysis is possible in the case of facts of existence. According to such an analysis, facts of existence consist in having an existence but conceived as an inseparable inner principle called an act of existence or esse. I argue against the possibility of such an analysis. If we consequently analyze a fact of existence in terms of alleged ingredients, we are finally obliged to accept the thesis that esse is entirely external to the thing. I also show that inseparability of esse blocks the function ascribed to it: the function of making real. I maintain facts of existence are non-analyzable and I refute the validity of the real difference between essence and esse.

In the paper, I put forward my views on the topic of existence. I do it by focusing on three distinctions: between static conceptions of existence and dynamic ones; between existence (of something) as a fact and as a principle of being; and between the limited existence of contingent beings and the Divine existence itself. I try to defend the cognitive value of the second parts of these distinctions in ontological and theological contexts. In my opinion, existence as a dynamic factor of being makes the difference between real and intentional objects, as well as between real (actual) and potential states of the world. Existence is also a necessary condition of proper activities of beings. In the final parts of the article I discuss some objections stated by Marek Piwowarczyk in his essay “Troubles with an Analysis of Facts of Existence.” I maintain that most of these (or similar) difficulties can be resolved by means of tools present in Barry Miller’s conception of existence.

The subject of the paper is the ontological status of actual and non-actual worlds. According to one version of contemporary Meinongianism, while the actual world exists, merely possible and impossible worlds are nonexistent objects. Moreover, they do not have any other form of being.The aim of the paper is to indicate some problematic consequences of this kind of Meinongianism, and to sketch an alternative view, which is based on ontological pluralism—the view according to which there are many kinds of being.

In his article, the author seeks to demonstrate that if there is a free will that results in good or evil, there must also be a Last Judgment, as there must be a proper settlement of the good or evil done. The existence of free will, which can produce good and evil, would be completely anomalous and pointless if there were no Last Judgment, and there are no pointless things in the world as we see it. The converse is also justified: if in the history of human cultures—in the history of religious systems since ancient times, at least from ancient Egypt—there is a belief in a court to which dying persons are subject, such a judgment only makes sense when people have free will to do good or evil. Thus, the idea of the Last Judgment supports the belief that free will exists.

First, the article discusses the British writer, Ian McEwan, from the standpoint of his atheism. It does so through the prism of “double-track” world views which characterize some of his works (Black Dogs and Enduring Love). In the second part, the essay moves on to address the moral problem of his penultimate novel, Children Act, and discusses the dilemma present here on three levels: religious, legal, and existential. The last one seems to be crucial to determining the tragic nature of the characters’ situation.

The present paper deals with the crucial element of Leo Tolstoy’s philosophy of religion, namely his conception of religion, A survey of his philosophical works shows that he presented partially different definitions: according to the first, religion is a general practical relationship of an individual to the world, and according to the second, it is a concrete attitude towards the world, namely one in which an individual goes beyond boundaries of her individual and communal identity, and tries to harmonize her life with the life of the whole world, The paper presents a reconstruction and analysis of both definitions, showing that they are versions of a broader, practicist conception of religion, and confronts Leo Tolstoy’s evolution with the philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard,

The French writer Michel Houellebecq is the author of six novels, and is also a poet, a director, and a musician. His literature is usually thought to be a fierce critique of contemporary society, especially of phenomena like consumerism and the sexualization of culture. In this article, I shall argue that Houellebecq’s novels share a thought that is also the basic idea of existentialism. Quoting not only Houellebecq’s novels, but also poems, essays and interviews, I will try to show that the problem he considers—which I call “the existence problem”—concerns the relation between a subjective individual and objective reality, described in terms of the natural sciences. By contrast, the main characters of his novels are representatives of different answers to that problem. If the problem does play a crucial role in existentialism—and, as I argue, this is the case—then it is legitimate to call Houellebecq probably the last of the influential existentialists.